by Duncan Shields | Dec 9, 2011 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
There is a tremendous amount of other life in the universe.
The universe is encrusted, moldy, infested, slushy, teeming, and stuffed with life. The amount of life in the universe is staggering. Much as the earth is populated with a bewildering array of lifeforms developed to take up refuge and thrive in the most bizarre of niches, so too does life perform on other planets.
The segmented iceworms who would evaporate from the touch of a human hand on far-away iceballs. The gas-giant sparrow clusters and tectonic-plate-sized manta rays that lurk deeper. Algae that lives under constantly shifting volcanic plates. Spores that float dormant and content in vast reef schools through space. Entire asteroids of silicate life that steer themselves by committee like herds of sheep.
There are no sets of temperatures, gas composition, gravity, radiation or light that completely precludes life. Anywhere in the galaxy. We are engulfed and surrounded by it.
The one thing that all life besides us has in common is this. It speaks no language and has no conscious thought. It knows fear, the urge to reproduce, affection, and the thousand other instinctual gifts that any natural life is heir to but it does not think. It does not reason. It does not question. It has no sense of self or sense of God. It merely lives.
Our television programs that spew out into the universe have contacted over five hundred million species of aliens. But those ideas and tv scripts have hit other life forms the way that sunlight hits a fox.
Giant centipedes with massive, radio-receiving antlers get our shows and shake their heads at the noise and paw the ground. Old reruns of Three’s Company tumble through the photo-voltaic flake crystal storms of fibre-optic minnows on dark blue ammonia shores, lighting them up in waves of colour that play havoc with their mating rituals. Broadcasts of old black and white films cause entire herds of black spheres on tiny moons near a distant planet to stop rolling, all sense of direction disrupted. Saturday Night Live reruns from the early eighties are cutting tiger-stripe swathes through the flimsiest space-webs of solar sail creatures astronomical units wide drifting in space. Reality television is causing one planet’s dominant predators to enter hibernation early, triggering a continent-wide shift in the ecosystem.
We are contacting, inundating, and even harming millions of races daily. All to no effect other than the casual ebb and flow of natural selection. The universe is crowded.
But we are alone.
by Stephen R. Smith | Dec 8, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
They met at Darlington’s; exchanged glances, bought each other drinks and before the lights came up and the bar spilled out they were in the back of a taxi heading back to his flat.
He’d never done anything like this; ultraconservative, careful, cautious, but there was something about her he could simply not deny.
They kissed in the back of the cab, his hands rough against the silken skin of her back, her nails no doubt leaving marks on his neck, tearing through his hairline as she pulled his face closer to hers.
In the elevator she was relentless; animal fury and gymnastic fluidity, her body curved and curled around him, rubbing and clutching, grinding and immobilizing him as she explored his mouth with her tongue, his body with her own.
In his bedroom she was insatiable, tearing at his clothes, shedding her own like a second skin to grind against him, bury his body in hers, work him like a stud horse until he could barely breathe, then curl against him like a cat, sometimes for minutes, sometimes hours before exploding in a physical force again taking him to a limit of physicality he’d never experienced in his wildest dreams.
When he finally broke, practically begging her to stop, she relented, only to lie languid and brooding beside him, watching his chest heave as he struggled to regain some composure, unsure if he would be allowed to sleep.
When she mounted him next, he found himself unable to move.
She watched him, motionless at first, simply sitting astride him and studying his features as a cat might watch a bird. When she finally stirred, it was to cup his face in her hands and slowly lower her own until their noses touched, her eyes bright and wide, his glassy and unmoving. There was something unsettling about the way she stared into him, but as alert as his mind was, his body was simply too over-exerted to move.
He felt his lips part as her tongue pushed inside, then a sudden feeling of fear as he felt her touch the back of his throat and push on, flooding his sinus and lungs with an unimaginable pressure of flesh.
His eyes widened, and he could tell from the wrinkles around her own that she was smiling, and whatever it was she was doing he was powerless to comprehend or stop it.
The strange sensation continued, and he knew that she was filling his body far more completely than he had only recently filled hers.
There was a sudden flood of thoughts in his head, feelings that were foreign, a presence that was not his own, and as it overtook him he caught his last glimpse of her as she seemed to disappear inside him, following the path her tongue had started. He was no more.
She flexed, pushing outwards inside the new form she had appropriated. It had been a fascinating experience, him sharing the pleasure rituals she was becoming more enamoured with each passing companion. Alternating genders was indeed appearing to be a much more effective means of securing a partner, her first few encounters resisting her before she eventually found those receptive to her charms.
Padding to the bathroom, she regarded herself in the mirror.
“Himself,” his voice different now heard from within.
In the kitchen he found food and drink in the refrigerator and consumed slowly, savouring each bite, each sip, enjoying the new sensations offered by the familiar sampled through this new vessel.
Sated, he returned to the empty bed to sleep away the day and replenish the body’s energy reserves.
He’d need them for the coming night.
by Julian Miles | Dec 7, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Life has always been hard at the bottom. My grandparents survived the collapse of 2013 and my parents made it onto the first exodus in 2055. It was considered simpler to test the tech and logistics on fifty thousand poor people. If it succeeded then Rockefeller had a head start on cheap labour.
It worked. My folks slaved their guts out along with the fifty thousand people delivered on each of the next three. The fifth Exodus used one of the new Jonah class vessels, bringing a quarter of a million people. The next eight did the same.
Every Exodus caused a rebalancing of social dynamics. We all thought that the overseers and such were planned stages on our way to a new economy. By the time we found out that there were no social architects or any sort of plan beyond whatever the new arrivals could convince the hicks already here of, it was too late. We were at the bottom again when we could have lied our way to the top. Then my family exceeded the population limits when my sister had triplets. So we dug a hidden bunker for them and found more than we expected.
Today I am in court, being tried by a jury of my peers who all look related to the prosecution. I am defending myself. Reporters are here in force and a representative of the Commission has arrived to observe as my crime is unprecedented. They have even let six people in from my commune. They are sat with clear space between them and the first unfortunate who couldn’t get further away. I straighten my smock and stand, raising my hand. The judge smiles indulgently and nods for me to continue.
“I swear by Almighty Tethra that the evidence I give today shall be the downfall, the utter ruination and nothing less than the annihilation of those who condemn me.”
The uproar lasts for ten minutes. The judge has to shout at me.
“That is unacceptable. Under planetary law you must use the oath native to the planet you are tried upon.”
“I am abiding by planetary law. Under the laws of the planet Tethra upon which I stand, set by those who lived overground before greedy men entrapped them, the oath is mete and fair as were my actions as a recognised executioner for the Tethren. With my presence here to answer for that, I call upon all those present to witness as I charge all those involved in populating Tethra or those who profited therefrom to pay edra in the ratio of nine returned to one gained, or face just annihilation by agents of Tethra who at this moment are rising from silos on the garrison planets known to you as Rockefeller Three, Four and Five. Finally, as executioner for the Tethren I am permitted recompense. This is calculated as one ninth of the worth of those I annihilate, to be distributed amongst my clath.”
Into the stunned silence I bow as my shortest companion sheds its human suit and leaps nimbly to land on the chair next to me. In pure Oxford English it speaks from six of the primary mouths hidden within the bushy growth at its top that indicates it is a progenitor of nine nines. Its tentacles shuffle rapidly to find a comfortable rest on the chair as it speaks.
“I am Pethdorline. I am an adjudicator-assassin and am here to notarise edra and clath. Please be prompt as terms must be rendered in exactitude before nightfall or annihilation is the only legal recourse.”
by Roi R. Czechvala | Dec 6, 2011 | Story |
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
SSG Ray Mansfield raised his rifle and glassed the valley below with powerful optics. His men, stretched out behind him, were virtually invisible, their chameleon skin armour blended seamlessly with the sparse vegetation and oily, rocky soil.
He clicked his teeth and opened the teams freq. The weak signal barely reached 25 metres before it disappeared into the background radiation rendering it undetectable. “I know it will be hard, but we have to take at least one of these fuckers alive. Everybody clear?” Mansfield received five confirmations. None were enthusiastic about the idea of bringing one in still pumping air.
The men called them “Sticks”, an appellation given for their too tall, too thin appearance that was only exaggerated by their complex body armour. They made their presence known with a barrage of nuclear weapons dropped from orbit.
They attacked areas of intense population, They extinguished fighting potential. Asia had ceased to exist within minutes. Europe quickly followed. The central United States, northern Canada, the interior of South America and Australia was all that remained relatively unscathed. Despite Africa’s low population density and negligible military importance, the Dark Continent was wiped clean. Maybe the Sticks just hated elephants.
“On me. Zalar, Brunson, twenty metres left, ten forward. Winder, Fromholt, right, same. Walker, my six, ten metres.” With intense slowness, the six men moved out. Their armour lagged mere microseconds behind the changing background.
The Stick encampment was small. Only twenty observed enemy moved within the protection of a complex perimeter screen. Recent minor victories had allowed the Sticks password technology to fall into the hands of the all but vanquished humans. The men penetrated the deadly screen with impunity.
They moved into their positions with a practised ease. They had surveilled the camp over the past week and knew it’s every inch. Cpl Walker’s mission task was a simple one. Protected by fire from Mansfield, he had only to locate and “paint” an enemy soldier with an x-ray laser visible only through their helmet optics. That one would be spared for study; possibly interrogation.
Though fearsome in appearance at nearly 3 metres, the alien warriors were quite fragile despite their body armour. The armour had been designed to protect them from the blasts of energy weapons, not the crude human Heckler & Koch G3’s spitting 30 calibre death. The copper jacketed lead cores tore through the creatures, literally ripping them to pieces.
Within ninety seconds, all enemy resistance had been neutralized. Corporal Paul Walkers mission to protect a Stick from elimination had been performed beyond the pale. The young soldier received a mortal wound and died saving the intended prisoner from the withering fusillade.
The last remaining Stick, it’s four upper limbs tightly secured behind it, hurled what were undoubtedly scathing invectives in it’s incomprehensible tongue. Staff Sergeant Mansfield approached the towering creature. Gripping the muzzle of his weapon like a baseball bat, he struck the beast across it’s mouth. It did nothing to halt the verbal assault.
A loud report silenced the creature. SSG Mansfield’s face and chest were showered with viscous, ochre blood as the aliens head vaporized before his eyes.
The massive frame of the Stick slowly slumped to the ground. Behind it stood Private Winder, his weapon still raised. A thin trail of smoke issued from the barrel.
“Winder, what the fuck?” Mansfield screamed, wiping the alien goo from his mouth, “What’s the matter with you. We needed this bastard alive.”
Slowly PFC Eric Winder lowered his weapon. He stared past his squad leader. “Sorry Sarge. I couldn’t help it. Paul was my friend.”
by Patricia Stewart | Dec 5, 2011 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“I don’t give a damn,” bellowed Senator Orcus as he slammed his fist onto the conference table. “They knew this day was coming, and they did nothing to prepare for it! Why the hell should we bail them out?”
“They were there for us,” retorted Senator Cura, “when our future hung in the balance.”
“That was over 10,000 years ago, when Mars colony was just beginning. None of the settlements were self-sufficient back then. And don’t kid yourself, Pellonia, they were taking much more than they were giving. They were plundering our resources when we were too weak to defend ourselves.”
“Still, we wouldn’t be here today if they hadn’t suppled us with essential consumables. We owe them.”
“The hell we do! Maybe we owe Earth of the twenty second century, but we don’t owe these selfish bastards anything. We terriformed this planet, not them. Our ancestors endured hundreds of generations of sacrifice; centuries of living in domes, surviving on next to nothing. And what were the Earthers doing? I’ll tell you. They were squandering their limited resources, poisoning their air and water, and killing each other in endless genocidal wars.”
“But what you are proposing is planetcide. That’s worst than genocide.”
“I’m talking self preservation. Earthers may be weak, but they are not impotent. We need to strike first, before they do. I have it on good authority that they are making preparations for war as we sit here on our asses. Earth will be at opposition in less than a hundred days. If we don’t attack now, it will be more than a year before the next closest approach. Their situation will be even more desperate then. I say the time for debate is over. We must vote on the war resolution now. It’s either Mars or Earth. And I cast my vote for Mars. How many of you are with me? Mars—Mars—Mars,” and the students erupted into a frenzy, chanting in rhythm with the teenager pumping his fist at the front of the classroom.
“Okay, okay, class,” interrupted the teacher, “we need to stop here for today. You two can finish up tomorrow. Cencio, that was a great portrayal of Senator Orcus, however, I must remind everyone that Orcus was a good Martian, and would never use profanity, no matter how much he was provoked by foolish, misguided individuals. Next week we’ll be switching to the Mars-Earth War. Nicolas will be reenacting Admiral Honos’ successful crusade to rid the universe of those hairless, disease ridden sub-humans. Now, remember to get your house mother to sign the Olympus Mons permission slips and bring them to school no later than next Phobosday. Class dismissed.”
